


Bring Your School to Work Day

by notoneforreality



Series: The Field Trip Remix [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Autistic Peter Parker, Darcy Lewis is Tony Stark's Daughter, F/M, Field Trip, Gen, Iron Dad, Irondad, Memes, Millennials, Okay this is too many tags, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker's Field Trip to Stark Industries, Protective Tony Stark, Tony Stark Acting as Harley Keener's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, gen z kids, ironfam, obligatory field trip, potato gun son, sorry - Freeform, spider son, taser daughter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:48:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23462728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notoneforreality/pseuds/notoneforreality
Summary: Peter Parker has never had much luck, and that's without Tony Stark interfering to make things worse. He's grateful for everything Mr Stark has done...or rather, was grateful for almost every Mr Stark had done. It was just some burnt toast! Mr Stark didn't need to go that hard on the revenge.Peter ends up on a field trip to the Avengers Compound with his class and hopes that no-one gets involved.Ft. memes, savagery, and wholesome family relationships
Relationships: Darcy Lewis & Peter Parker, Darcy Lewis & Tony Stark, Harley Keener & Darcy Lewis, Harley Keener & Peter Parker, Harley Keener & Tony Stark, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Avengers Team, Peter Parker & Pepper Potts, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: The Field Trip Remix [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1687852
Comments: 98
Kudos: 1513
Collections: Absolute Faves, Grays fave Irondad fics, Peter Parker’s Field Trips, peter parker and his field trips





	1. What the fuck (Richard) Tony?

**Author's Note:**

> Usual rules apply: no idea where this is in the timeline, yes to Homecoming, no to Ultron, Civil War, Infinity War, Endgame; the Stark kids are honestly my new babies I will fight Tony for custody and lose; let me know if there's anything you want to see.
> 
> This will be added to a new collection about my Stark kids, as well as becoming the first in a series of field trip fics because I have two problems and they're called too many ideas and too much love for this trope.

It was revenge for the toaster incident. Peter knew it was. Mr Collins read out the announcement about the trip and Peter knew, he _knew_ this was revenge for the toaster incident.

“Hey, Parker, ready to get burned when everyone in the Avengers Compound totally blanks you?” Flash shouted across the excited chatter about the school trip next week.

Peter swallowed. He hadn’t even considered that: Flash being in the same building as his extended family. There was no way that was going to go well.

“Aw look, Penis is already getting scared that we’re going to find out he was lying.”

Mr Collins didn’t even look up. This was going to be a shit show.

“Odds on getting Mr Stark to build me a rocket so I can catapult myself into space without a helmet?” Peter whispered to Ned, next to him. At the desk in front, MJ turned around with one eyebrow raised and the sort of unimpressed look on her face that only she seemed to have mastered. The sort of unimpressed look Nat would have been proud of.

“You don’t need Mr Stark to build you a rocket.”

Ned nodded. “Yeah, just get Hulk to yeet you out of the atmosphere.”

Peter grumbled his way through school, ducked the usual insults and empty water bottles flying in his direction, and slouched into the passenger seat of the car when Happy came to pick him up. Happy slanted a look in his direction but didn’t ask questions – not that he usually did, but he had to have noticed that Peter wasn’t chattering away as usual.

Steve and Bucky were in the common room when Peter got back to the compound, lounging on one of the couches watching what looked to be ‘I Love Lucy’ on the widescreen mounted on the wall. Steve was sketching one of the actors, but he looked up and smiled when Peter said hi, and Bucky asked how his day had been.

“Yeah, about that: where’s Tony?”

Bucky frowned. “Kitchen, why?”

“I’ll be back in a minute.”

Peter marched across the common room to the kitchen on the other side, permission slip in hand. Tony was loitering by the coffee machine, but he turned around when Peter slapped the sheet of paper onto the island in the middle of the room.

“I can’t believe you’ve done this.”

Tony frowned, then caught sight of the slip and a wicked grin stretched across his face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Your school is simply the first to be a part of a program designed to improve the Avenger’s PR; to make them more accessible and less terrifying to the public.”

“Chosen randomly, of course,” Peter said, voice flat.

“Randomly from a hat,” Tony said, still grinning.

“How many names were in the hat?”

“Classified information, I’m afraid, kid.”

Peter flipped Tony the bird, then hurriedly tucked his middle finger into a fist again as Pepper appeared. Tony and Peter both chorused a greeting to Pepper, who surveyed them with narrow eyes.

“What are you two up to?”

“Why would you ever suspect we were up to something?” Tony said. He made his eyes wide in the most unconvincing pretence at innocence Peter had ever seen.

Pepper raised an eyebrow. “Because I know both of you.”

“I resent the implications of that statement,” Tony said cheerfully, while Peter hopped up onto a barstool and let his head drop forward onto the polished granite surface.

“Damn, what’s got the baby spider so upset.”

Peter didn’t bother to lift his head, just slid the piece of paper towards Clint’s voice. Halfway through extending his arm, his brain caught up with his actions and he tried to snatch it back, but Clint had already grabbed the letter. Peter flapped his hand and cringed further into the table top at Clint’s barked laughter, then rolled his head sideways to face Clint.

Clint grinned back at him, entirely unapologetic. “I bet the rest of the gang will be so very excited to hear about this at dinner.”

“Or not,” Peter said. Clint’s grin grew. “I’m serious: or not.”

Or yes. Clint waited all of ten seconds for everyone (tonight: Tony, Bruce, Steve, Bucky, Clint, Natasha, Pepper and Peter) to take their seats at the long dinner table before gleefully announcing that Peter had a field trip to the compound next Wednesday. Peter, sat between Bucky and Nat, opposite Tony, buried his face in his hands.

“Lord lend me patience or a handgun.”

Two separate guns were thrust into his field of vision by two separate hands, and Peter blinked. Bucky and Nat narrowed their eyes at each other and Tony snatched both guns away before Peter could touch either.

“Absolutely not. Creepy Russian sensibilities away please.”

Bucky tried to slip Peter a knife, but Steve caught him at it and confiscated the weapon.

“Weapons are for adult spiders only,” Tony said loudly as Nat pressed a taser into Peter’s hands behind their backs.

“What’s the problem,” Bruce asked, and Peter gave him a baleful look.

“The problem is Tony has done this on purpose because I told CARTER to burn his toast.”

Bruce stared at him, expression blank. “Who’s Carter and why are they making Tony’s toast? And what does any of this have to do with a field trip here?”

“You haven’t noticed the new toaster?” Clint asked, incredulous. “Surely even you can’t miss the fact that it chitters when you don’t clean out the crumb drawer. I didn’t even know toasters had a crumb drawer.”

“Carter stands for Cute Appliance, Ready to Toast Everything Reliably,” Natasha told Bruce, who was still looking confused. “Peter built a sentient toaster and named it in the vein of JARVIS. Then told it to burn Tony’s toast. Tony organised the field trip in retaliation.”

“And why is that a problem?” Bruce asked, because he was a nice person who didn’t have the same evil leanings as most of the team.

Clint, who definitely did have evil tendencies, grinned and shared a look with Tony, but Peter slumped down in his seat.

“Just…look: people at school barely believe I have an internship. If you guys turn up and act the way you usually do, they’ll go mad. I just want to keep my head under the radar.”

“People think you’re lying?” Pepper paused in preparing a taco to frown over at Peter. “But we filed the paperwork as soon as you were officially an intern.”

“It’s nothing. It’s fine. The teachers haven’t had a problem, even with me leaving at all hours.”

“Just some of the kids,” Steve guessed, and Peter’s silence answered the question.

There was a long pause in the conversation as everyone ate quietly, thinking over what Peter had said.

Then Thor, on the other side of Natasha, leaned over to her and whispered loudly: “What’s a field trip?”

* * *

“A field trip, like with your school? Here?” Darcy made an admirable attempt at not laughing. Next to her, Harley had no such qualms and laughed so hard he nearly fell of the sofa. The two of them had been working through dinner – Darcy in the lab with Jane, and Harley in the workshop with Dum-E, which was concerning to everyone who knew the two of them – so Peter rounded them up and dragged them to the den to tell them himself.

“I’m so glad you find my imminent death so funny,” Peter said to Harley, who sat up, eyes sparkling.

“Oh my god, I’m going to ask Tony if I can stay home on Wednesday.”

“What? No!” Peter dove off the sofa to tackle Harley, who was already moving towards the door. They rolled around on the floor, shrieking and yelling, until Darcy dragged them apart for long enough that Harley had time to send a message through FRIDAY. Then Peter leapt at him again, and was caught by Darcy.

“I have a taser and I’m not afraid to use it on either of you.”

“That’s not fair! Peter heals faster, it would be worse for me.”

“Healing faster doesn’t mean I don’t get hurt when she fires 50,000 volts at me!”

“I’ll shoot both of you if you don’t shut up.”

The boys shut up.

FRIDAY took advantage of the momentary silence. “Harley, Tony says: ‘I’d say yes but Momma Keener says no and rules of the deal means she gets veto privilege. Sorry buddy.’”

Harley made a face but didn’t argue. He’d moved up to the compound to work more closely with Tony, transferring to a school nearby, but Tony had been so worried about looking after him that he’d made sure Grace Keener would always be kept in the loop.

(He had a similar deal with May, with whom he effectively shared custody of Peter. Peter alternated weeks at the compound and at May’s apartment in Queens so May could work night shifts without worrying about him getting into trouble. He had a horrible suspicion that May met up at coffee shops with Tony and Pepper to discuss co-parenting but he hadn’t caught them at it yet. He had an even more horrible suspicion that May and Happy were seeing each other, because he _had_ caught them at a coffee shop.

Darcy had been mildly put out by Tony’s concern over being a bad parent.

“You did perfectly fine with me!”

“Darce, you nearly got kicked out of the college that dealt with the Hulk, then went off to the Land of Enchantment and ended up tasing a god instead of just another drunk frat boy.”

“Exactly; I turned out great.”

“I appreciate the support kid, but I’m still checking in with Grace and May.”)

“It’s okay, I’ll just make sure to keep you updated,” Darcy told Harley.

Peter’s mouth dropped open in betrayal, but he didn’t launch himself at Darcy because she gave as good as she got and Ol’ Sparky was always stashed somewhere on her person.

“It’s fine,” she said to the look on his face. “I’ll stay out of the way.”

Peter nearly relaxed.

“I’ll just watch you suffer on FRI’s cameras.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is almost completely written so it should be out sooner than my Twitter fic updates usually are but I can't promise when that will be. Hopefully by next week at the latest.


	2. Honey, you got a big storm coming

Peter packed his bag for the trip the night before, after two hours studying the itinerary he’d asked FRIDAY to send him. It was pretty much assured that the trip would be a disaster, but he could make it less of a nightmare by being prepared.

He was still late for the bus, but he’d factored that in because time was a big ball of wibbly wobbly stuff that he didn’t understand, and he wasn’t the last to arrive. On one hand, this was a positive – Mr Collins didn’t tell him off or even sigh too loudly – but on the other, there was no one to stop Flash for the ten minutes they were sat on the bus without Mr Collins or Cindy. The driver glanced in the mirror a few times but did nothing, which wasn’t a surprise. The guy looked like he’d have the same flat look of exhaustion even if a fire started at the back of his own bus.

Peter hunched down in the seat and tried to concentrate on Ned talking about Stark Industries and MJ talking about the international political ramifications of the Avengers even existing rather anything Flash was saying.

Eventually a red-faced Cindy climbed onto the bus, followed by Mr Collins, and the bus started moving. Cindy slid into the seat beside MJ, who didn’t immediately kick her out. That was the closest to friendship MJ got with anyone who wasn’t Ned and Peter.

“Sorry guys, I had to run all the way here,” Cindy said.

MJ broke off her heated discussion with herself to say ‘no big’ and then picked right back up from the middle of the sentence again.

Cindy joined the bubble of conversation, and Peter slid out of it, not even attempting to try to keep up with three overlapping voices. Not today, not with the trip looming ahead of him.

He spent the trip reciting the periodic table in his head and letting the sounds of the bus roll over him without attempting comprehension. It passed the time until they were out of the city, and then he turned his attention to watching the landmarks fall away past the windows as they headed upstate.

Peter was the only one who didn’t gasp at the first sight of the compound. Ned, MJ, and Cindy stopped talking, and Peter grinned. That had pretty much been his reaction the first time Tony had brought him up. The bus fell silent for the first time on the entire journey as the vehicle followed the road around past the quinjet on the landing pad and stopped outside the main door.

Then it erupted into chaos as everyone shoved to be the first person off the bus and into the building.

Marietta Lennox met them at the reception, an intern in the administration department. Peter had met her several times for various reasons, most of which included filling out damage reports. Her eyes twinkled as they passed over Peter, but she didn’t say anything.

“Welcome, Midtown, to the Avengers Compound,” she started, as Mr Collins finally got the class to shut up and stand still for two seconds. “You’re fortunate to be the first group to tour the compound as part of our Pellucid Program, so I hope you all behave appropriately.”

Peter zoned out as she ran through the rules of the trip; they’d been printed and stapled onto the back of the permission slip, and they were the same as the general rules he already knew, anyway.

“Above all, please remember that this is a functional work environment, and be respectful towards all our staff.” With that, Marietta picked a box up from the front desk and started handing out security cards, explaining their necessity as she walked around.

When she reached Peter’s group – now one less than it had been on the bus, as Cindy had run to the front to stare and whisper to Betty – she grinned. Once she’d given Ned and MJ theirs from the top of the pile, she fished around in the bottom of the box.

“I’ve got a special card, just for you,” she whispered. After a moment, she produced a crude, cardboard rectangle with ‘GUEST’ scrawled on it in pen.

Peter snorted in amusement. “Did Mr Stark make this?”

“Yep, and he says you’ve got to wear it or else Happy’s going to have a problem with you.”

“Happy can decide for himself whether he’s got a problem with me,” Peter said, but he sighed and clipped the fake badge to his jacket.

Ned laughed at it, comparing his own, sleek, official pass to the fake, and even MJ almost smiled, which made Peter’s own reluctant amusement bubble, too, until Marietta moved away and Flash took the opportunity to weasel his way through the clump of students and snicker at Peter’s badge.

“Hey, Parker, the fuck is that? You’re so pathetic telling everyone you have an internship here when they don’t even care enough to give you a proper visitor’s badge.”

Peter’s mirth died, and he rolled his eyes, tugging on the strap of MJ’s backpack when she opened her mouth to argue. There was no point trying to point out the many holes in Flash’s logic when he was so determined to catch Peter out.

“Now, if you’ll just step through this scanner, making sure your badge is clearly visible, and we’ll start the tour,” Marietta said, waiting to the side and ushering the first person through.

The first person was Abe, who jumped as he walked under the frame, presumably at FRIDAY’s quiet voice telling him his clearance and threat levels, but he emerged happily on the other side, and the others lined up to follow.

Peter ended up fourth from last, not counting Marietta, and he traipsed towards the metal frame, in no hurry to be through the other side.

“Welcome back, Peter. You’re early.” FRIDAY’s soft accent filtered through the speakers just above head height. “Oh, is this the field trip Boss mentioned?”

“Yeah, FRI, no need to tell him I’m here,” Peter said wearily. He was under no illusion that Tony didn’t already know exactly where the tour group was and exactly where it was headed.

Some of the group waiting on the other side gave him odd looks as he spoke, but not even Flash questioned it as they waited for Mr Collins and Marietta to follow the last couple of students through.

The first surprise was the appearance of Darcy at the first stop. Peter wasn’t listening to Marietta because he knew everything she was saying, so his eyes wandered round the room, not registering who the assistant in the staff kitchens was. Then he blinked and had three seconds of knowing what was going to happen before Darcy turned around.

Her face lit up and she rushed towards him, before frowning and checking her watch. She frowned again and continued towards Peter with questioning eyebrows, then spotted the rest of Peter’s class, and froze. Her eyes went wide. She mouthed sorry and crept backwards as quietly as she could. That worked well, until the toaster (a less sentient toaster than the one that had started this whole mess) popped and she jumped and shrieked.

The whole class jumped and turned to see what had happened.

Darcy clutched at her chest. “Aw, fuck, sorry, wait fuck, no, shit, um I mean fudge. Sorry. Gods, Dad’s gonna kill me.”

Marietta sighed, a hint of annoyance flickering across her face at being interrupted mid-speech about government research facilities in the compound. Seeing Darcy, however, it was replaced by almost-amused resignation.

“Class, this is Darcy Lewis.” Marietta gestured and Darcy waved from where she was assessing her toast. “She works with Doctor Foster in the astrophysics division. Darcy, this is Midtown High School. They’re touring as part of the Pellucid Program.”

“Yeah, I know,” Darcy said, automatically, then rushed to say, “it was in the staff notices.”

Marietta glanced at the clock in the kitchen while Darcy pulled the butter out of the fridge and rummaged through a drawer for a knife.

“Well, while you’re here, would you like to talk to the class about your role here?”

Peter gave Darcy his best death glare. Darcy finished buttering her toast and gave it a mournful glance before turning on her presenter voice, the one he’d seen her use in a board meeting once when he was shadowing Tony. He tuned out most of her description of what it was like to work with Doctor Jane Foster – Betty whispered excitedly about Doctor Foster being a leading lady in the science world and how it was so cool that Miss Lewis got to work for her – and watched the government monkeys scurry behind the glass separating the labs from the kitchens.

At the end of Darcy’s talk, Marietta thanked her before starting to usher the group away. Peter hung back just long enough for Darcy to throw up finger guns at him before switching her attention back to her toast. As he moved away, the toast crunched behind him, and his hearing caught the tiny, sorrowful mumble:

“Aw no, cold toast.”

* * *

They went to the biophysics labs next, watching through the glass walls at the bustle of scientists within. Bruce was inside, working at a computer station, and he offered a small smile that could have been for the tour group as a whole, were he not making direct eye contact with Peter as he looked over. Peter thanked science for small mercies that Harley hadn’t managed to get the day off school. Bruce wouldn’t interfere with the tour; Harley most definitely would have. As Marietta gave a brief overview of SI’s history then moved on to the current working of the company, Peter almost made the mistake of thinking he’d escaped notice at this stop.

There had been a few curious glances from the scientists in the lab, but Darcy was right in that there had been a staff bulletin, and everyone working today had known to expect a tour group. The problem came after a brief presentation about the current testing for renewable, bio-energy, when a tall man in a blue lab coat with scruffy ginger hair peered over, and spotted Peter in the group. His face brightened immediately and Peter pressed further back into the group with a groan.

“What’s up?” Ned whispered.

“Karl spotted me.” Peter grimaced and hid behind Abe. “What’s he doing now?”

“Is that the ginger guy arguing with Dr. Banner?” MJ appeared at Peter’s elbow. “Any idea why? He seems rather interested in this tour group.”

“He saw me, and he knows I work with Bruce a lot.”

Marietta’s voice trailed off as she realised she had lost the attention of most of the group, the students all far more interested in the silent pantomime of an argument between Dr. Banner and Karl Jones. She frowned through the glass, tipped her head back to meet Peter’s despairing eyes, and sighed.

“I think we better relocate to a less interesting area for the next part of the talk. Come on, leave them to it in there.”

They left them to it and relocated to the Stark Industries business offices that were situated between the biophys and engineering labs. It was a welcome reprieve from any concerns about being recognised and brought to attention, because he stayed out of the business aspect. Harley and Darcy knew enough about it that Peter didn’t have to concern himself with horrifying board meetings and budget details and product marketing. He stayed squirreled away in the various laboratories and let them get on with it.

“So, what’s with the name of the program, anyway,” Ned asked in a low tone when Marietta mentioned it for the third time in introducing the group to the marketing staff.

“It means ‘clear’ or ‘transparent’,” MJ said, before Peter could even speak.

He grinned. “It was supposed to be a working title. The government and the PR team decided that the Avengers were too scary because they were too far removed from normality, so the compound should be opened to tours for the sake of transparency and that sort of stuff. Mr Stark wasn’t a huge fan, so to be annoying he chose a placeholder title of pellucid, which is a really obscure way of saying ‘clear’.”

“Why didn’t he change it?” MJ cocked her head to the side, willing to listen while the presentation was set up.

Peter rolled his eyes. “Because he pushed the program forwards to get back at me for a prank and didn’t have time to come up with a better name.”

Ned’s face lit up. “Oh my god, did you get the toaster to work?”

An elbow to the ribs from MJ cut Ned off before he could ask anymore, but Peter nodded, an answering grin on his own face, before turning to face the presentation. MJ wanted to pay attention; he could avoid causing a distraction for just as long as the people at the front were talking.

One of the staff clicked onto the first slide, and Ned snorted before singing under his breath, “Look at this graph.”

MJ’s glare was enough to quell armies, but Peter still nearly exploded trying not to laugh.

Eventually, the presentation ended and everyone clapped, polite even though most of them weren’t interested in the workings of Stark Industries’ marketing division. Peter was pretty sure the only reason they had a presentation here was because it was one of the only areas of the compound that could afford to have a whole presentation to explain things to teenagers. Most of the labs were behind glass, only accessible to those with much higher clearance than anything a tour group would have, and the SHIELD offices weren’t actually supposed to be onsite, and therefore weren’t a part of the tour.

The only other place to have a full presentation was the training section of the compound, after lunch, which Peter was not looking forward to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Edit: for anyone confused about the joke at the end, see this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIlNIVXpIns I swear for once it's not a rickroll I promise]
> 
> Okay so this rather got away from me. There's now three chapters instead of the intended two but I promise I've nearly finished writing the next one, which means it should be up as fast or faster than this one was. Speaking of, can we appreciate that it only took me four days to update instead of four months? I think that might be a personal record.
> 
> I also promise I'm still working on the twitter fic. It'll be updated soon, I swear!


	3. You're my dad! Boogie woogie woogie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -  
> -  
> CHECK END NOTE FOR POSSIBLE TRIGGER WARNING  
> -  
> -

The closest thing to an issue came in the engineering labs. Peter somehow ended up at the front of the group as they left the offices, and Taron-from-Chicago spotted him immediately, rushing towards the group and rattling off the latest problem he was having. Peter winced and tried not to answer, even though already running the calculations in his head, but it looked like Flash was finally going to see his worst nightmare come to life. Before Taron could reach the group however, Marietta – lifesaver, guardian angel, goddess among mortals – stepped right in front of Peter and loudly introduced the program to the staff in the room.

Taron screeched to a halt, blinking at Peter and only then seeming to register the assorted teenagers standing behind him. One small mercy was that he hadn’t actually addressed Peter by name at any point, which meant he had plausible deniability.

“Oh, sorry. I thought this was the next shift arriving.” Taron beamed, then winced, then turned on his heel and sprinted back to his work bench.

It was a good thing Peter and Marietta were the only ones who knew the next shift didn’t start for another hour and fifteen minutes at the earliest.

These labs had a brief presentation about performance testing for new Stark Phone models, which Dr Charlotte Mitchel managed to give with only minimal confused glances at Peter. She was a relatively new hire; Peter didn’t think she’d gotten around to learning what the deal was with those two kids who kept running around the place and joining projects that seemed interesting. Peter and Harley should probably introduce themselves properly, later.

Once the presentation finished, Marietta left space for a more enthusiastic round of applause than the marketing team had got, then clapped her own hands twice.

“And before we get onto the most exciting part of our tour, today, it’s lunchtime. If you follow me, I’ll lead you to the canteen and you’ll have an hour to get food and talk amongst yourselves about your day so far before we move on towards the reason this complex was built.”

Excited chatter broke out about whether any Avengers would be there and what secret rooms they’d get to see, and the class turned from demure students into a rowdy gaggle of kids in an instant as they followed Marietta down towards food.

Peter hesitated at the top of the stairs, hanging back for a second as the rest of the class raced to lunch. He didn’t usually have lunch down in the staff canteen. It was the same reason he tried not to eat in the canteen at school when he could get out of it: the amount of sensory input as all the students or staff were released for their one hour of freedom during the work day was painful. What made it worse at the compound was that, for one, there were no teachers to tell everyone to shut up and, for two, it was about three times as big and at least twice as busy, especially during the lunch rush.

“You alright?”

Peter offered MJ a wary smile and nodded, then joined her in following the rest of the group.

Of course, even before any real problems, Peter almost put his foot in it straight away as he headed towards the pizza counter. One of the tables near the hot plates was populated by a group of interns from the R&D department, the place Peter did most of his work outside Tony’s private labs. Anna Travis spotted him and grinned.

“Hey, Pete, what are you doing down here?”

Next to her, John grinned, too, then made an exaggerated face. “Yeah, you can’t sit with us.”

Through some sort of Pavlovian, habitual response, the words were falling out of Peter’s mouth without him making a conscious decision to speak: “Actually Meghan, I can’t sit anywhere. I have haemorrhoids.”

Then, because of course he was, because Marietta was on the other side of the canteen and Mr Collins was seven feet that way and distracted by talking to Betty, Flash was there.

“You’re so fucking lame, Parker.” He shoved his way in front of Peter in the queue, not bothering to look back. “Vine died like five years ago, stop chatting that shit to random strangers.”

At the table, Anna’s face was scrunched in a variety of emotions that Peter couldn’t name, and John was half out of his seat. Peter frantically waved his hands behind Flash’s back, telling them to cut it out. It wasn’t worth it. He just needed to survive the lunch hour, then the class would be under supervision again and Flash wouldn’t make trouble.

A light flickered overhead, and Peter winced, trying to ignore the buzzing that had sprung up at the base of his skull. He just needed to survive the lunch hour, and then he’d be out of the busy dining space and back in familiar halls.

Flash got his pizza and found a table with some of the others, and Peter was free to collect his own food and then escape back to where Ned and MJ had already claimed seats. He threw a vague wave in the direction of the interns, who still looked unhappy about what they’d seen, and concentrated on not letting his tray shake. The table Ned and MJ were at was in the centre of the room, surrounded by chatter and laughter and people that he barely knew.

He made it halfway through the pizza, before Flash turned up again. MJ levelled a flat look at Flash and his backup, Ned pressed his lips together, and Peter tried to roll his eyes, but the slice of pizza was still in his hand and frozen, trembling, and his breath was coming too shallow.

“Oh look, Parker’s scared!” Flash crowed, his voice lancing through Peter’s head and rattling around his shoulder blades. “That’s ‘cause he knows he’s gonna get found out soon. He’s a loser and a liar.”

The last word stretched out, bunched up, and ricocheted around Peter’s brain like a bullet. Someone said his name and it layered, like a choir, but it was too much, too much, too much, this whole thing was too much and he couldn’t do this anymore. A high-pitched whine was coming from somewhere and it hurt his head and his throat – but that was because it was coming from him, the vibrations in his neck fuzzy against one hand as he hit the other against his temple, trying to make it stop, make it all go away. Something tried to detach itself from his body and he floated for a moment before a clanging sound shoved him back into his skeleton, with a force that hurt his stomach.

Everything was screaming white behind his eyelids and there was something round his throat round his neck round his head-

“-the lights!” The knife of whiteness vanished in a second as one familiar voice cut through the rest of the cacophony. “Jesus, kid. No, don’t try to get up yet. Keep your eyes closed. FRIDAY’s cut the lights but there’s still windows. We’ve talked about this. This is why you take your lunch up with me.”

“Stay with group,” Peter rasped out. He kept his eyes closed. The dull ache of the headache from the lights was still pulsing behind his eyes, but also he couldn’t face seeing his class right now. He had no idea how they would have reacted to his meltdown, let alone to Tony Stark being the one to turn up and talk him out of it. The staff had dealt with this before, when Peter was still having lunch down here regularly, and the canteen was a quarter as loud as it had been before, rowdy confrontations across tables exchanged from murmured conversations with the people next to them.

There was no sound from Peter’s class. He didn’t know whether they had left or whether they were just too shocked to speak.

“FRIDAY, tell Darce to ditch Foster and meet us in Pete’s room,” Tony called, still pitching his voice low.

“No, ’m fine.”

“Bullshit are you fine, kid. You know everything on this tour already, and you need a nap. Darcy will sort you out.”

“School.”

“Jeez, you’re persistent. Honestly, you’re the only kid who lies to go to school rather than get out of it. Bed.”

Peter dragged himself up using Tony’s shirt, then cracked his eyes open. Through his eyelashes, he could see Tony’s face, entirely unimpressed.

“That would have been more convincing if you weren’t nearly strangling me with my own tie to do it.”

Peter took a long, lizard blink, and opened his eyes properly, balancing on his own two feet. “’M fine. See.” He tried to hide his knees buckling by sitting down on the bench, but Tony just arched one eyebrow.

The rest of Peter’s class were over Tony’s shoulder, Ned and MJ hovering as close as Tony would let them get. They were the only two who didn’t look dumbfounded by the arrival of Iron Man. The very tiny part of Peter’s brain that was running normally noted with some glee that Flash was doing his best impression of a fish, and hoped Darcy saved the film footage. Mr Collins’ face was also rather startled. Just because he knew Peter had an internship, didn’t mean he knew what to make of the boss turning up to help talk him out of a meltdown.

“We’re going to find Darcy, and you’re going to bed,” Tony said, again. “We’ll have dinner just the five of us, tonight. The rest of the team can stuff it.”

“Stuff you,” Peter echoed, and Mr Collins gasped.

“Mr Parker!”

Tony held up a hand to silence him, still watching Peter’s face. Peter stared at Tony’s ear and set his shoulders, ignoring the pins and needles chasing up his arms and neck. After a moment, Tony turned around.

“You’re teacher?” He asked. Mr Collins nodded. “Great. I’m keeping Peter for the rest of the day. You need me to sign anything? I’m one of his registered guardians.”

A flurry of whispers broke out and Peter couldn’t swallow his whimper in time. Tony’s head tipped towards the class and the noise stopped in an instant.

“If you’d just write a note and sign it,” Mr Collins said, his voice slightly off key and strangled. Peter’s lips twitched up.

“Give me some paper and I’ll do it. One of you two-” Tony waved a hand towards Ned and MJ, pausing for just a second. “Scary MJ, you’ll be fine talking to Cap, won’t you? Tell him Peter’s fine but the rest of the team are uninvited from dinner.”

“Got it,” MJ said, while Ned gaped.

Mr Collins produced a piece of paper and Tony scribbled something down, signing with a flourish.

“Right. We’re off, then. Come on, Pete.”

* * *

“Okay, it sucks that you had a meltdown and all, but can we just appreciate the irony of Flash calling you a liar being the exact reason everyone found out you were telling the truth?” Harley sprawled on the bottom of Peter’s bed, having just got home from school and been filled in on the events of the day.

Darcy grinned from her position propped up against the headboard. “I bet he would have been happier just accepting you had an internship rather than accidentally being the reason everyone found out you’re Dad’s favourite.”

Harley squawked in protest but both Peter and Darcy ignored him.

“I could have done with him being less of a dad, though,” Peter groused. He was swinging in a hammock he’d rigged out of long-lasting web formula, one foot hanging down towards the bed. The rocking soothed the buzzing that was still hanging around his cheekbones.

That comment earned rolled eyes from both Harley and Darcy.

“Try stopping Dad when one of his kids is even mildly inconvenienced, see how far you get. You’re lucky he didn’t swoop in to bundle you in blankets and kiss your hair.”

Peter’s cheeks heated at the image, but there was a warmth in his chest, too. As much as he could pretend to be grumpy about how his class had seen Tony looking out for him way more than he would a regular intern, it still meant a lot every time Tony showed that he really did care.

“It actually went better than expected,” said Peter, and received two dubious looks. “In that I’m pretty sure Flash left the building intact and with no new trauma cause by people who get too overprotective.”

“Yeah. We’re gonna talk about Flash, right?” Harley said, raising his hand to tap against Peter’s ankle. “And about how you’ve mentioned that to no-one.”

“You’re going to show me the footage of him seeing Tony arrive,” Peter told Darcy.

“We’ll talk about Flash tomorrow, when you look marginally less like you’re about to fall apart because an ant stomped its feet too loud,” she said.

Peter aimed a kick in her direction, stuck between grinning and being offended, but she batted it away, towards Harley. Harley hit it back, and then Peter’s foot was caught in the strangest game of ping pong in the world.

When Tony came in, half an hour later, the three of them were laughing so hard they almost didn’t hear the door open, Peter’s foot looping wildly as his laughter swung the hammock. Peter twisted around to face Tony, earning more yells as that sent his foot on an even wilder journey between Darcy and Harley’s hands.

Tony stared at them, eyebrows raised, but then a grin spread across his face.

“Kids,” he said, shaking his head. “Come on, it’s dinner time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: description of autistic meltdown, similar to panic attack, includes reference to a minor self harm stim (hitting) and brief mention of dissociation.
> 
> -
> 
> Hey that's a whole complete fic! In a week! That's got to be some sort of miracle like hot damn. (the secret is writing most of it a year beforehand and not having the energy to do anything with it until the quarantine boredom sets it)
> 
> Shout out to ZombieCyborgAssassin who basically dared me to fit in the haemorrhoids vine so of course I had to. It was surprisingly easy.
> 
> I also have another field trip fic half written but not nearly as much as I had prepared for this one, so it might be a while before that surfaces, but I have two chapters of the twitter fic planned and half written so they'll be up soon. Hope you enjoyed! Check out my other works if you haven't done so already! I'll love you forever!


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